Leap of Faith, aka Life Grip, aka Liquid Awesome

Okay, we need to talk about Leap of Faith. Seriously. From the Cataclysm Priest preview:

Leap of Faith (level 85): Pull a party or raid member to your location. Leap of Faith (or "Life Grip") is intended to give priests a tool to help rescue fellow players who have pulled aggro, are being focused on in PvP, or just can't seem to get out of the fire in time. Instant. 30-yard range. 45-second cooldown.

Now, we don't need to talk about the spell itself. It's clearly a clever little cantrip, a creative and useful addition to our arsenal. It even has a hilarious nickname.

What we need to talk about is peoples' reactions to this spell. I know reactions will always be across the board for any new spell announced. I know Blizzard could announce a new spell called Holyform that increased healing by 25%, and someone would complain that they can't cast SW:Pain while healing.

But I am just shocked reading opinions on the Priest Preview when it comes to Leap of Faith. Most of peoples' opinions seem logical: Heal? Yay for more healing granularity. Inner Will? Yay for choice of armor spell, and for a movement buff. Mind Spike? Yay for ummm... damage? I guess? But then people single out Leap of Faith and say things like:

• DPS should not be pulling agro and if they do, it's their own darn problem
• If they DO pull agro, why do I want them (and the Big Bad Mob) closer to me?
• DPS should get out of the fire themselves, by engaging their brains and then their legs
• Why pull someone to me when I can just heal them at 30 yards?
• Great, now when someone dies I'm going to be blamed for not Lifegripping them!

Now, I can see the train of thought here (i.e., some DPS are drooling facerollers and I don't want them anywhere near me, after all, stupid might be contagious), and I don't really disagree with it. But that's besides the point! We're not getting this spell for their benefit, we're getting it for OUR benefit! (And I guess for the benefit of the competent tanks and raid leaders we like)

Leap of Faith is an absolutely unique spell. With it, we'll be able to do things no one else can. And with style! Sure we'll be able to yank DPS into out of the fire and towards away from rampaging mobs, but we'll also be able to help reposition tanks! Pull people onto platforms if they mis-time a jump! Help people with Frogger! Help tanks who are kiting fast mobs! Save people being focused in PvP or arena-style fights! Help people with poor connections to avoid explosions! Make sure we're always covered when a fight requires people to group up! Pull DPS who pull agro TO the tank so the tank can pick up the mob! Help the poor clueless hunter who was supposed to carry debuff X to location Z! The list goes on and on.

I mean, seriously, this is one of the coolest spells we could have: we will now be literally able to move people around on our screen, like we are playing Tetris with their tiny pixelated backsides! How many times have each of us wanted to yoink that idiot warlock out of a void zone, or a firewall, or a meteor impact, or grab the over-eager fury warrior away from the Demon Of Doom? Or, alternately, reach through your monitor, wrap your hands around that rogue's neck, and squeeze? NOW WE CAN!!

And all this is just based on the mechanics of the spell. There will also be the aesthetic side: think of the graphics and sounds they could associate with Leap of Faith! Personally I'm hoping a magical shepherd's crook will appear, snake around the target, and give them a big yank. I suppose a *HURCKK** sound effect would be a bit much but you never know. And just think of the macros you can write to whisper someone when you Lifegrip them!

In all seriousness, Leap of Faith will be an awesome addition for Priests. We priests have some of the most unique heals in the game, from a shield that absorbs more damage than many heals can restore, to an autonomous healing prayer, to a hymn that can keep a whole raid up, to the ability to heal after death. Now in Cataclysm, we'll be adding in an armor spell that offers us greater mobility, a smaller heal for greater finesse, and Leap of Faith, the new ultimate micromanaging spell. Made of liquid awesome.

Disc tips: Festergut

Time for more tips! We are skipping right to the Plagueworks for today's tips, because I haven't been rotated in to see Deathbringer Saurfang since his buff-and-nerf cycle, so I can't comment on the recent changes and how they affect us Disc priests. Besides, what is a lone orc against the might of the Alliance?! Amiright?

Sooo... Festergut!

THE TIPS

The first tip is on how to tell Festergut apart from Rotface. They use the same (hideous) model and their rooms are the same, and both of them cast spells like Gaseous Pungent Stinky Gastric Blight Bloat, so it can be hard to distinguish them! What I did is realize the Plagueworks bosses are in alphabetical order from left to right: Festergut, Putricide, Rotface. And in my opinion it's best to start with #1 alphabetically, since although Festergut has steep requirements for DPS and survivability, it's technically the easiest fight by far.

So Festergut is a cyclical fight. It wobbles between one extreme, Raid Damage to Make a Tree Druid Flail for Joy, and the other extreme, Tank-Crushing Damage to Make a Paladin Cry. When there is a lot of orange blight on the ground, there is raid damage going around, and everyone needs heals. Shamans and Trees will be going nuts here, but you can help out with shields, PoM's, maybe a Divine Hymn if it gets ugly.

Periodically Festergut inhales some blight, which reduces the raid damage, but supersizes the damage he (it?) does to the main tank. When Festergut inhales three times (you can tell because the floor will be blue again instead of orange (also your main tank may start whimpering)), the damage is particularly insane. At this juncture, you should be in full-tank-spam-heal mode. Shield-Penance-Gheal cycles are recommended. Even if you are assigned as a raid healer, there is no raid damage during this time, so you should help on the tank. Divine Aegis and Inspiration insurance for the win!

The other main mechanic is the gas spores. Ranged players need to spread out overall, to avoid Vile Gas. But when Festergut launches gas spores, they need to collapse to share the debuff. Luckily for me, our guild has all the healers stack on the MT so we can heal uninterrupted, but your guild may have you at range, moving around to coordinate the debuff. Follow their lead; trust me that this is one strain of cooties that you DO want. Unless you enjoy eating the AOE he does after inhaling three times!

The fight repeats from there, with Festergut starting his inhale-cycle over each time. It's not a hard fight to heal, it just has sort of a "minutes of boredom followed by seconds of sheer terror" vibe. The only other mechanic is a tank swap (ICC is basically the Land of Required Tank Swap Mechanics. Blizzard could save developer time by just calling all these spells Yes You Need To Swap Tanks Again). But because of the nature of this one, offtank agro may be high, so you may want to be careful with Pain Suppression.

POWER INFUSION TIME

Festergut has a very short enrage timer, necessitating strong DPS as well as strong tank survivability. It's sort of Patchwerk meets the Hokey Pokey for DPS players. All this means for us is, PI early and often, except for when Heroism is up.

BONUS STRATEGY HAIKU

Festergut's strong, sure,
but what role can this guy play
in the Lich King's plan?

I mean seriously, is this pile of flesh and rejected abomination brains really part of the master "Take Over Azeroth" plan? Or is it just Putricide's side project/spare parts repository? And if so, why are we bothering to dispatch it?? Oh, right, the epixxx. Silly me!

Disc tips: Gunship Battle

Time for a third installment of Disc Tips for Icecrown Citadel, this time for the exciting Gunship Battle!

THE TIPS

Step 1: Insert players

Step 2: Receive loot

Disc tips: Lady Deathwhisper

With Marrowgar down, next up on any raider's dance card is the somewhat chatty boss, Lady Deathwhisper! So here is #2 in what I hope to make a series on ICC bosses, featuring tips for Disc priests.

THE TIPS

Deathwhisper is a two-phase boss, of the front-loaded variety (This means phase 2 is easy, so that it may still be completed if your DPS die to completely avoidable damage, and/or your healers have a coronary trying to heal DPS who are dying to completely avoidable damage).

Getting past phase 1 relies upon the tanks being able to pick up the adds, while the DPS burn down adds in the right order. Unfortunately you can't help with that, but you can make sure your assigned tank(s) stay vertical. I recommend keeping your tank in sight: make sure you stay in range and in LoS (note the stairs in the room). If your guild brings all the adds together by the boss, this is easier, but there are still steps and pillars to watch out for.

Also try to be aware if a Deformed Fanatic is activated. If one is, it may be worth it to use Pain Suppression, or at least a Shield-Penance-GHeal cycle or two. Deformed Fanatics are usually kited but if they get too close, your shields could save the day.

As for the DPS, you can help them too. Configure your UI to display people standing in the Death and Decay, and those who have agro. Shielding both can add a nice safety margin to DPS who are already watching add spawns. You can further help by dropping a few DoTs on Deathwhisper in between trash waves if you like.

Finally, watch out for mind controlled players, as they may get healer agro. If targetted, use Fade instead of Psychic Scream: the radius on the fear may also send adds fleeing, and this tends to make tanks cranky. Alternatively you can DPS down the mind controlled players; this tends to result in hilarity, but not generally success.

Once phase 2 hits, it's more of the same: heal tanks, don't stand in the fire. However, be sure to watch where you're standing. Vengeful Spirits will spawn from the dead adds, and if they reach you they can hit for 20k!

POWER INFUSION TIME

The time to cast PI is early and often. Cast it on the players assigned to burn down the boss's shield: since they won't switch targets, they'll get the most use out of it. If your guild burns Heroism early, cast it right after, otherwise cast it on the top boss-killer DPS on cooldown.

BONUS STRATEGY HAIKU

Heal tanks, shield raiders
And if you get mind controlled
Try to kill a mage

Deathwhisper is not a hard fight to heal... most of the learning curve is dealing with the adds. But some good ol' Disc-elbow-grease can make it easier on everyone to handle!

Disc tips: Lord Marrowgar

I thought I'd start posting tips for Disc priests in Icecrown Citadel. Let's start with Lord Bonesaw Marrowgar himself! Marrowgar is a basic fight, and the healing requirements are pretty bare-bones (pun intended). But for each of his abilities there's something you can do to maximize your survival.

THE TIPS

His Saber Lash is the first thing to deal with. Normally there will be healers on each tank. You can help them all by shielding each tank as often as you can - the shields will definitely get consumed. If there is another Disc priest in the raid, tell him that you have no idea how those Weakened Souls got there, maybe his spellbook is leaking? Another, less obvious trick is to use Prayer of Mending on cooldown here. With the splashed damage, it will be a big part of your tank healing.

The Bone Spike Graveyard is the other major spike damage (pun intended). I strongly recommend configuring your UI or AddOns so that you can clearly see the debuff this puts on targets, so you can immediately shield them, even if you're on tank duty. This will give other healers time to acquire those who need healing. You can also toss a Penance or Renew their way as needed.

There are also Lightning Tendrils to deal with. I can't wait to see these one-shot people in heroic mode, but for now they're not too bad. A Chain Heal or PoM splash will usually help people survive them. If you try to heal all the people standing in the fire, your mana pool will go bone-dry. (pun intended) (ok I'll stop)

Finally, everyone's favorite whirlwind, BONESTORM!!! What I like to do here is a little tactic called "Shield Spam Panic." I'll let you deduce the subtleties of it but just try to toss out shields (and PoM again) as needed. Although if people spread out to too wide a radius to heal, it won't be very humerus. (who was I kidding)

POWER INFUSION TIME

The best time to cast PI is right after a Bone Spike Graveyard ends. If you do it during or before a graveyard, it may be wasted if the DPS is re-acquiring targets. If you do it right after a BONESTORM!!! (threat wipe), the DPS may get drunk with power and pull agro. This may cause hilarity but not generally success.

BONUS STRATEGY HAIKU

Saber Lash hurts bad
So don't help "tank" Marrowgar
And you won't get boned

So there's Marrowgar. The "tricks" I've posted here are not exactly rocket surgery, but hey he's the first boss. I hope to post more on the following bosses. Till then!

Power Infusion is Better than Heroism

Although I've been reviewing talents, I hadn't intended to review Power Infusion. It seems like a straightforward spell, a good buy for one point, and I've never seen a Disc priest without it. But lately I've seen some discussion on it, specifically whether it was worth casting on yourself or a DPS. Someone even said it was nothing to write home about! Because of this, I wanted to share some thoughts.

Before I justify the claim that PI is better than Heroism, here's the obligatory basics. Power Infusion speeds up casting and decreases the cost of spells. It provides a noticeable 20% increase in casting speed for 15 seconds, and saves some mana too. It is similar to Heroism/Bloodlust (with which its speed does not stack). It also doesn't stack with Arcane Power for mages.

Give it Away, or Keep it?

So PI gives haste and saves mana. No caster can argue with that. But how best to use it, casting it on a DPS, or saving it for oneself?

First, let's look at ourselves. When it comes to spell haste, Disc priests are often swimming in it. We'll often have Borrowed Time active for half of our spellcasts or more. And when it comes to mana, Rapture is usually ticking regularly. Now there are certainly times when predictable burst healing is needed, and casting PI on oneself can help. It is also very nice for General Vezax, for example. But more often than not, it can be superfluous on a Disc priest.

So, let's look at dropping it on a DPS. They'd probably enjoy some haste, they love Heroism after all! Comparing the two, we see that PI gives only 2/3 of the casting speed bonus, and for 15 seconds instead of 40. So one cast of PI on a DPS is about (2/3)*(15/40) as good as Heroism, that is, 25% as good (not counting the mana savings, since DPS rarely go OOM in an ideal world).

However, PI has a nice short cooldown. In fact, with Aspiration, it's just 96 seconds. This means you can easily cast PI on a given DPS four or five times during your average fight. If we add that up, now we're talking 100-125% of the bonus of a Heroism. That's right, for one lucky DPS, Power Infusion is better than Heroism. Or put another way, your DPS of choice gets two Heroisms per boss. Hax!

The Fine Print

Now, although PI can help a given DPS's performance more than Heroism, there are some limitations. Heroism is easy for DPS to make use of, since it's often called for by a raid leader at a set time, during a solid burn phase. It also comes with graphical and sound cues and lasts 40 seconds, so it's easy for DPS to stack other trinkets and procs with it.

Power Infusion, on the other hand, will be up for four or five separate 15-second periods, and the timing is controlled by a priest who may be frantically healing. So here's some ideas to help people make the most of PI:

• Pick a class that can benefit from the haste, like a mage or warlock.
• Pick a player that can handle stacking cooldowns and procs for max damage.
• Ideally, pick a player who knows in advance that your PI is coming.
• Use PI during burst damage phases, or at least times when your DPS player can focus on casting.
• But also use PI early and often, to get the most out of it.
• Don't use it during phases when Heroism is usually called for. Try to stagger it with Heroism.
• Use a macro to tell someone that you PI'd them. My macro is below.

Power Infusion Macro

Here is what I use to buff people, and tell them I did so. It casts PI (if in range and available) and whispers the target. It is 255 characters; I lengthened it because when it just said "You have [Power Infusion]," occasionally I would get a reply like "No, I didn't spec for it." Now my macro is a little more descriptive. (I would attach a "DPS for Dummies" book if I could!)

#show Power Infusion
/script local u,p="target","Power Infusion";if IsSpellInRange(p,u)==1 and GetSpellCooldown(p)==0 then SendChatMessage("You have "..GetSpellLink(p).." for 20 secs! Enjoy the haste!","WHISPER",nil,UnitName(u)) end
/cast Power Infusion

Something to Write Home About

So, overall, I am a big fan of PI. Back when it was the top-tier Disc talent I developed a "meh" feeling about it, since there's not much synergy with Disc (or with healing in general), but since then I have come to see its power. Blizzard keeps saying they won't give Heroism to another class, but really they've already given us a single-person version. Just find a smart DPS player to routinely PI, and pretty soon you will be receiving pleading tells to stay Disc instead of swapping to Holy or Shadow for any fights!

The Return of Onyxia

I don't usually post about WoW news, since so many other blogs and sites do a great job of it. But I had to post about Onyxia's announced return.

This is awesome news. I've been raiding on my priest since 15-man Stratholme was "progression content," and there has never been another fight like Onyxia's Lair. I'm sure nostalgia is part of it, but I think anyone who raided Onyxia in her native environment would agree that there's something special about her.

Everything about Onyxia's Lair was special. Preparing to raid there was a month-long guild field trip. Everyone needed to complete a long wide-ranging quest chain. You needed to travel far and wide (Winterspring anyone?). You needed to head into Blackrock Depths* multiple times. You needed to talk to the world's diplomats. You needed to confront a dragon in Stormwind, in the presence of great heroes, in one of the best scripted events in the game. And then, each week you and your guildies could all hop on a ship and sail off to Theramore, and then swim to the broodmother's lair.**

Once you got there, you got to see an awesome encounter. After getting past the warders, of course... I remember wiping to those guys more than once.

Phase 1 was straightforward. One brave soul tanks Onyxia. With their back to the wall, since she would bat them away like a cat swipes at a ball of yarn. Everyone else starts attacking her, and healing up any damage. Sounds like a tank and spank, but this was before threat meters, before stats like spell power, and before half the classes were half as viable as they are now. This was where we learned now-basic lessons like "Standing in front of a dragon is bad" and "Standing behind a dragon is bad" and of course "Pulling threat causes Onyxia's fire breath hit quite a few more people than it strictly needs to."

And for healers, all we had back then was Flash Heal (a mana hog), Greater Heal (with a frightening 3.5 second cast time), Renew (only one allowed on each player by the way), and Shield. Our top tier talents to help save the tank's life from this fire-breathing monster? Divine Spirit (single target buff), and Holy Nova (with 30 second cooldown). The strategy of the day was to spend all one's mana on Flash and Greater, then stand idle to regain mana while someone else stepped in.

But phase 1 was still pretty easy. Remember, there were 40 of us. But then she decides to take off (sometimes after eating an offtank or rogue). Then, phase 2: always an adventure. How long would she stay up there? Would she fly around a lot, or stay still and pelt us with fireballs? How many times would the hunters not look where they were going and get too close to the dragon whelps, who would proceed to eat us? And let us never forget the dreaded Deep Breath. Also known as, "Your raid is not a winner. Your consolation prize is a fiery death. Thanks for playing, come back next time."

Eventually Onyxia would tire of raining destruction on us from above. She would land, and be walked back to the tanking spot (sometimes after eating an offtank or rogue). Phase 3 was like phase 1, but with the added bonus of burning streams of lava all over, and a periodic raid-wide fear. Hmm... fear, plus nearby caves full of whelplings... it's almost like she planned it this way. Luckily, we overpowered Dwarves were there to save the day with Fear Ward (then a 10-minute buff, 30-second cooldown, only known to Dwarves).

And finally, if the stars aligned, and damage and healing were good, and the raid could avoid eating tail swipes and pulling the whelps, the broodmother Onyxia could be slain. An incredible accomplishment the first time for a guild, given all the prep time, and equally as satisfying each additional time. At least unless you found out she didn't have your tier 2 hat again.

I just can't write about Onyxia without waxing eloquent. It always struck me as a cool encounter, dripping with lore, strategy, fantasy, danger, and rich rewards. It's why we went there every week. It's why we ran Jailbreak 20 more times to attune initiates and alts so we could keep going there.

Just something about going into a cave shaped like the maw of a giant dragon, to confront a leader of the black dragonflight. Being tasked by the Alliance's finest to slay the dragon. Charging recklessly into her lair, where she lay waiting. Standing next to her, seeing her maul the tank repeatedly, hoping she wouldn't notice your side of the cave. Watching her take off and soar above us. Watching everyone launch their spells and arrows at her in the air. You don't get more Warcrafty than that, nor more high-fantasy.

Onyxia's lair has always been my favorite raid encounter. If Blizzard treats the old girl right for the upcoming anniversary, we're all in for a treat. And in the meantime, I'd encourage everyone to stop by the broodmother's lair. It's a very fun fight, even 3-manning it now at 80. You don't need a minipet and a mount and a new hat to enjoy this classic raid encounter.

Long live the queen!


*For newer players, to get a picture of BRD, start with Old Kingdom. Multiply it by ten. Ten times the twisty turns, ten times the little sub-zones with unique mobs, ten times the obscure quests, ten times the bosses. Make all of these sub-areas connect over and under and through each other, yet make it so you need to go through half the instance to get to any one thing you need. Then make every major quest chain in the game run through it at some point. Yeah, we spent a lot of time in BRD.

**After you did the quest chain and BRD runs 40 more times, for everyone else in the guild.

Complete Idiot's Guide to Discipline Priest Spells

I thought I would put together a basic guide on, "How to cast spells as a Disc priest." It can be counter-intuitive at first, having all these cooldowns on healing spells. So here's the basics:

1: Cast Power Word: Shield on the Tank

This may be obvious, as Disc talents practically beg you to shield people, but I have seen lots of Disc Priests who seem hesitant to shield the tank. I feel this is like a Fire mage not casting fire spells.

Let's be clear: Power Word: Shield is your first, last, best line of defense. You spent 11 talent points and a glyph on it (at least I hope you did), so use it! When you shield a tank, in addition to the 5-7k of absorption it adds, and the topoff heal from the glyph, you also give the raid a damage reduction buff and mega-haste your next heal. You want to shield the tank every time you get. You want their soul to be weakened permanently. These are Good Things (TM).

Some people might save shields for emergencies. This is silly: with Disc's talents you are far better reaping the great benefits from shields, and using Penance for emergencies. More on that later.

2: Cast Power Word: Shield on Everyone Else

So you're shielding the tank every 15.00001 seconds, what else? Well, you took Soul Warding to remove shield's cooldown, right? (Please say yes!) So cast shield on everything that moves! As Disc you can toss out a shield once a second, and with Ulduar's raid damage, this is very useful mitigation.

Check some wow meter parses if you like, but believe me, nearly all shields will get used. And with good situational awareness, you can shield those who pull aggro or eat random damage, saving them when no other healer can. And regardless, Rapture and Borrowed Time mean it's almost never a bad time to cast a shield. Throw at least one out in between shielding your tank, it will only help.

3: Cast Penance on Cooldown

Honestly, you could spend all your time shielding, and do pretty well, but you have other juicy talents to exploit make use of! Penance is an insanely efficient heal, and it heals a lot right away, so it's great to use on your tank.

In some cases it can be good to save Penance for damage spikes, but I recommend casting it on cooldown. With its short cooldown (You have reduced the cooldown, haven't you?), you can cast it often to keep them nice and full on health, and every time it crits it will add up nice Divine Aegis bubbles which will further smooth out damage.

It's nice to rotate spells so that after a shield, you cast Penance and then Flash or Greater. Penance benefits from Borrowed Time but doesn't consume it, so this way you get two lightning-fast heals.

4: Cast Prayer of Mending on Cooldown

So shield, Penance, what else... PoM! Disc doesn't have many talents to boost Prayer of Mending, but due to Ulduar's raid damage, in most fights PoM will be extremely useful regardless. So after a shield/Penance/heal cycle, toss PoM on a tank if it's available. It will always heal the tank, and bounce wherever it's needed. Many times it will bounce several times, which is free healing, and of course each bounce can crit and leave another small Divine Aegis bubble! We like bubbles!

Think of it this way: You shield a tank, Penance them to full and probably leave an aegis on them, then give them a PoM buffer. By the time a boss eats through all that mitigation and healing, your cooldowns will be up again and you'll be ready to do it again! And if the PoM goes on its merry way healing melee and other tanks, we're sure not complaining.

Conclusion

It can take time to get used to the Disc play style. Having all your major heals on cooldowns, and having one of them be channeled, is a new experience for a healer. But I feel the above guidelines are a good way to get your feet wet, to learn to use and love Disc's spells. If you need a concluding blurb to summarize all the above, it's this: The Disc tree makes Power Word: Shield and Penance into ridiculously powerful and efficient spells. The proper play style boils down to abusing using these spells for all they're worth!

Now go try it out, and don't rest until everyone in your raid is encased in a shiny golden bubble of safety.

Viable talent specs in 3.1

Many people have already posted on talent specs for 3.1. I wanted to post my own thoughts sooner. Hopefully these thoughts will remain relevant throughout 3.1, so the post isn't immediately out of date!

As priests, we have a few options for our two specs. We can use either or both specs for healing, DPSing, or PvPing. I think it really comes down to personal preference and guild situation whether one chooses to have 2 healing specs, or a healing spec and a PvP spec, or a raid healing spec and a trash DPSing spec, etc. I think I will start out like many priests and pick up a disc and a holy spec for starters, at least until the healers in my guild stabilize and I have a better idea of what's needed.

Here are what I think are the viable/best specs:

Deep Discipline PvE Healing (57/14/0)

In my opinion this is the logical best Disc spec. You get all the goodies, skip the PvP stuff, and get enough in Holy for Inspiration (and Desperate Prayer, a favorite of mine as a Dwarf!) You could make a case for putting 4 more in Holy to pick up Improved Healing, perhaps taking points from Focused Will or Improved Flash Heal, but I don't think it'd be worth it, with Penance's cheap cost. It depends on the frequency of casting Greater Heal as Disc.

Deep Holy PvE Healing (14/51/0 + 6)

This is the skeleton of most deep Holy builds, I think, covering all the essentials and leaving 6 points to place where you like. Circle of Healing and all the talents that help it, the staples Holy Concentration and Surge of Light, and all the passive healing boosts for big throughput. With the remaining points you can choose to also have a better Renew in your arsenal, the passive Test of Faith for healing where it counts, Serendipity for faster Greater Heals, or better efficiency from Mental Agility in Disc. You could shave a few more points off of say blessed Resilience or others too, depending on taste.

Holy/Disc PvE Healing (21/60/0)

I cooked up this odd spec, squeezing the Disc talent Soul Warding into a CoH build, and I'm not sure if it's any good. I thought of it because I think PW:Shield is underused by Holy priests as well as Disc ones, and Soul Warding would let you through out a couple of shields in between CoH cooldowns. Without Disc's massive shield buffs, it may not be worth it, but it could be interesting for dangerous trash packs, or perhaps for some gimmick encounter.

Holy/Disc DPS

The idea of a LolSmite spec has a soft spot for me, and with dual specs you can always get a wacky spec for your off spec. Surge of Smite is probably not going to top a raid damage meter but it can do decent DPS if you're looking for something fun to try. For more info I have to recommend Xel's new smite DPS blog.

Shadow DPS

Of course, Shadow is the traditional DPS spec, and comes with excellent trash-pack APE damage in Mind Sear, so it can be a good secondary spec for clearing trash. WoW Insider had a great post on shadow specs the other day.

PvP Healing or DPS

I'm afraid I haven't kept up with PvP in WotLK, and I don't want to post a PvP spec without any experience. I would imagine that deep Disc is the preferred arena spec for its enhanced survivability and shielding, but that deep Holy has potential especially in battlegrounds. The new talent Body and Soul seems very nice for the BG involving flags and quick travel.

Hopefully this spec advice is sound and helpful. Time will tell, as we advance through Ulduar, which specs are best for the encounters there. Have fun choosing a spec and switching between specs!

Is Power Word: Shield TOO good?

PW:Shield has historically been a good, well-balanced spell. It's an instant-cast shield, but you can also think of it as a front-loaded heal, or an extension to tank hit points, both of which are naturally very good. No other healer has a spell like it. It even has a cool echoing sound effect when people whack you while you are shielded! And yet the spell is balanced, by its cooldown and Weakened Soul, and untalented it's not as mana efficient as a heal.

It's been a spell that has always been very powerful, even back in WoW and TBC, and I think it has always been underappreciated and underused. Disc priests now understand its strength thanks to all of its new bells and whistles, but I think it's worth using as Holy too.

And if PW:Shield is good in 3.0, it will be amazing in 3.1! For Disc priests in 3.1, shields also cost 30% less mana, have no cooldown, energize the target with mana/rage/etc, and shielding anyone also reduces all incoming raid damage by 3%. This is in addition to how they are already stronger than normal shields, return mana when they are consumed, grant spell haste when cast, and with a glyph they even heal a bit. Don't forget the upcoming tier 8 set bonus, which grants 250 spell power each time you cast a shield. Not many spells have this many features!

So what prevents PW:Shield from being ridiculously overpowered? Once the 4-second cooldown is gone, only Weakened Soul will prevent it from being spammed. Weakened Soul makes using shield as a regular heal impractical, and means it will still only play a small role in tank healing.

I am not sure if this a healthy way for the Disc tree to work, with PW:Shield so insanely good, but with a harsh limit on how often you can use it to heal a tank (which is Disc's "specialty"). It seems a little odd to spend a dozen talent points on a spell, when perhaps it will only mitigate 1/8th of a boss's attacks. Is it unusual to have a spell so transformed by recent improvements, but have its balancing debuff unchanged since WoW's release?

An interesting side effect of all this is that PW:Shield is actually looking pretty good as a raid heal. A talented and glyphed shield costs very little and absorbs a whole lot (and heals 20% of that amount too). With no cooldown, and with Borrowed Time hasting each cast's global cooldown, it could mitigate a lot of raid damage from AOE or adds.

So, is PW:Shield too good? It depends on the encounter, and on how it's used, and on how Weakened Soul comes into play. We will see how well it does in 3.1. Perhaps the mechanic of Weakened Soul will be changed to let us shield tanks more often, or perhaps it will be kept as-is, to remind us that we're not just tank healers. In any case, PW:Shield and Penance will definitely remain Disc's signature spells, and all the shield buffs and the new Penance glyph should provide for some interesting options for Disc priests.

7 buffs you need to know about

One thing I think is important for a healer UI is to let you see important buffs. In general I think displaying relevant information is one of the essential features of AddOns, but in particular I think a healer benefits from having an accurate view of the raid's status. This view naturally would include debuffs, as we often need to dispel them or heal people affected by them. But I feel another important part of that view is the display of certain types of buffs:

1. HoTs: Naturally you want to see who has your HoTs active. You may also want to see when people are covered by HoTs, so you know there is some healing coverage there. GridStatusHots provides a great display of these.

2. Shields: Disc priests will want to see who has PW:Shield active, but all healers can benefit from this: seeing a shield lets you know there's less need for immediate heals. An active shield is like a few thousand extra temporary hit points, so you want to see shields to get a proper view of everyone's health.

3. Immunities: Spells like Iceblock and paladin bubbles can be good to see, so that there is no need to focus healing on a target that won't need it.

4. Mitigation buffs: It's very helpful to see when a tank pops Shield Wall, Icebound Fortitude, Last Stand, or a similar skill. It shows that the tank will be taking less damage, and it indirectly conveys info on what kind of damage the tank expects in the near future, and on the condition of the encounter.

5. Lesser mitigation buffs: Things like Shield Wall greatly affect healing, but there are also lesser mitigation effects. Grace, Inspiration/Ancestral Fortitude, and Blessing of Sanctuary all can reduce damage by a few percent: not really vital to know about, since their presence probably won't change your healing decisions, but nice to see. Divine Aegis may fit in here too, as a typically smaller shield spell.

6. Reactive healing buffs: Prayer of Mending and Earth Shield should definitely be tracked by priests and shamans. MendWatch and other mods track these for the purposes of knowing when to recast them, but it's also good to have these display on your unit frames, so you know who can safely take a hit from an add or AOE without losing HP right away.

7. Back from the Dead spells: Spirit of Redemption and Shadow of Death allow players to keep playing even after they die. Most unit frames will show these players as still alive and kicking, even though they are living on "borrowed time." Naturally you want to know which raid members won't be with you much longer!

Other buffs can also be useful to see, from boosters like Arcane Power, to regen spells like Innervate, to encounter-specific spells. They range in important from vital to know, to mere convenience. But I think overall, any healer can benefit from thinking about how seeing some of these buffs will help them.

The importance of sound

Every so often, someone will say they play WoW with the sound off, and listen to music or TV while they play. I don't really get this... I can do that while I'm mindlessly playing an alt, but I really need sound while raiding or doing heroics.

Part of it is that sound adds a subconscious level of immersion. Playing with the sound off just feels detached to me. Plus it's rather hard to focus on a raid while Mythbusters is on TV! But I also feel that sound is an important part of the user interface, and I think that its use should be encouraged and enhanced, and not muted.

There are many built-in sound cues in the game. You can hear a sound effect when you get clearcasting, or when your attack is parried, or when your Prayer of Mending bounces. These are a good start towards building situational awareness, but like the rest of the default user interface, leaves something to be desired. Plus there's the fact that all the ambient sound from players near you and the world all combine into a cacophony of spell effects and grunts and clangs of steel!

So, we extend the role of sound, just as we extend the default UI. Our mods can play sound effects. This is ideal because we can choose which events to single out with an auditory notice, and we can pick any sound effect we like to go with each. Blizzard created a lot of great sound effects, but sometimes there's a subtle sound effect for what is actually a very important event, like a void zone spawning under your feet! When we configure mods to play our own sounds, we can pick distinct and memorable sound effects to go with important procs or debuffs.

A well-known recent example is how Deadly Boss Mods yells "Run away little girl!" when Sartharion summons a lava wall. Interesting that they chose to play a (very recognizable) sound clip when this happens, in addition to showing a timer bar. On the other end of the mod spectrum we have Comix, a mod that plays the old Batman "POW!" sound effects when you crit. Silly yes, but very evocative, and it also plays other sound effects when you get important buffs, and sings "Extra life!!" when you get a battle rez. If the author added funny sound clips for getting Grobbulus's disease, or the different charges on Thaddius, perhaps it would be a required raiding mod!

A personal example is that when learning Sarth 2D and 3D, I had trouble avoiding the Shadow Fissure void zones. With 2 drakes up, between the extra healing demand, the fire walls, and the adds, it seemed I often forgot to look at my character to see if I was standing in a zone. So what I did is write a mod that plays a silly sound effect each time a Shadow Fissure is cast. Once I had this enabled, I was able to make the association: hear sound, look down to see if I'm in a fissure. It has been a great help; I still get healer's tunnel vision at times, but now I have auditory cues for fire walls and void zones.

I think these example show how sound can be used effectively in mods. Sounds are transient, but powerful. Sounds can act as an interrupt, an alarm. This is why fire alarms use sound, why ambulances use sirens, and it's also why someone calling an important event on Ventrilo is often far better than everyone having one more timer bar in their already-cluttered UI's. We are visual creatures, but a full raid UI is already overtaxing on the eyes. Best to use sound as much as we can, to let the ears help us parse information. To only use sound effects for ambience is to miss their power in alerting us to important events.

AddOn Theory

I also wanted to make an early post on the key points of a good UI. I believe being a good healer and having a good UI are strongly linked. It's true that anyone who cares a lot about their class/role will want to tweak their UI for it, but I think healers have a special need for lots of information, and easy ways to act on it.

In fact, that sums up what I think are the two key points of a great UI:
1) Provide information
2) Allow action

This is because everything we do in the game comes down to observing the game world, making decisions, and then carrying them out. And since ideally the decisions should be made by the player (at least the non-trivial ones), that leaves the two areas of providing information, and enabling action, as the functions of a good UI. Good AddOns should help us gather information efficiently, and carry out our desired actions more effectively. This leaves us more time for the crucial decisions themselves.

When it comes to displaying information, there are two issues. First, is all the information you need available? And second, is it displayed in a useful manner? So first of all, does your UI show healing, damage, HP, mana, buffs and debuffs, and everything else you'd want to see? And secondly, is the UI set up so that you can effectively access and use all that information? If we could parse an unlimited amount of info, we could just read our combat logs as they fly by. But we have a limited amount of focus, and so a good UI needs to display relevant information, quickly and succinctly, in a way that's easy to understand.

For example, a good UI should show you if you get a clearcasting proc. Knowing that you can cast a big spell for free is useful information that could affect your spell selection. Now, you could turn on buff notifications in FCT/SCT so you can see that you gained clearcasting. But in combat, will you be able to watch all those buff names fly by, while watching health bars? Perhaps a better idea is to have a mod that pops up a graphic when you get procs you care about. Or plays a sound effect that you can associate with clearcasting. This way the information is there, in a way you can easily observe even while doing other things.

The other side of the UI is how it lets you take action. Once you've made a decision (hopefully quickly and correctly thanks to good information displays), you want to be able to carry it out with a thought. You don't want a multi-step process in order to cast a heal or important buff. You'd like each important action to be achievable through a direct, quick, easy action. Healing or shielding someone or buffing them in combat should only require a click, or a keypress, not a lot of mouse movement to find them, target them, select a spell, and cast it. This is why Emergency Stop switches are large red buttons as opposed to combination locks.

The best example of this for healers is a click-to-cast mod: it's easy to save somebody when you can just click their health bar. But this also applies to making sure all your important spells are assigned to clicks or bound to keys, setting up macros for important tasks, using mods or macros to activate trinkets as opposed to clicking them in your character sheet, and so on.

Overall, in my opinion, the goal of a good UI is for it to display all of the information you need, succinctly, quickly, and parsably, and to allow you to act on that info directly, quickly, easily, and completely.

Healing Theory

Since this blog will definitely have a focus on healing, I wanted to post an introduction to some of my thoughts on healing. I will post more entries on individual points as time goes on but I wanted to come up with an outline of sorts on what I think are the keys to being a good healer.

The basic key of being a healer is wanting to help other people stay alive. This goes without saying. But how?

A good healer should want to know what's going on. Who is tanking what? What kind of damage will they take? What kind of AOE or debuffs are flying around? A healer should want to know what happens in each phase, so they can heal effectively.

A good healer should also want to know everything they can that will affect their healing. Who was just hit with that deadly spell? Who has aggro? What debuffs does the MT have? How long until the boss's next ability? If there's something that will affect the raid, the healer should want a way to know when it's happening. This is where mods come in to being a good healer, but I will post more on that later.

A good healer should want to know their toolbox of spells and abilities. They should not rely on one smart-spell or spam all their spells with abandon. They should want to know which of their spells is most efficient, which has the most throughput, which is best for spike damage, how the spells scale with spell power/crit/haste, and which spells are best for unique encounters. A good healer should also consciously manage their mana, being proactive with regen cooldowns, and properly balancing throughput and longevity with their gear choices and spell usage.

A good healer should want to protect anyone in their care. If they are assigned to heal player X, then they should want to do whatever they can to keep player X alive. It should almost be a matter of pride: whatever went wrong on that last attempt, player X didn't die. If there is another player who seems to need healing, a good healer should want them protected too.

A good healer should be a cooperative participant in a healing team. They should be eager to see that all the tanks (or players with special roles in an encounter) are covered by the team, especially in a way that best utilizes all the different healing classes' abilities. They should come to know the other healers too, getting familiar with their skill sets and spell preferences, so as to better work with them.

A good healer should trust their teammates, but also be interested in keeping an eye on the raid as a whole (to the degree allowed by their assignment), and should be ready to help out with a shield or quick heal on anyone who needs it. If someone dies and it was preventable, they should get upset, and if it happens more than once, they should be thinking about how to avoid the problem in the future.

A good healer should also be willing to expand their abilities. They should take it as an interesting challenge when they have to heal a tank as well as shackle an add, dodge an AOE, do a dance, mana burn a boss, or whatever. They should be willing to learn new skills, DPS a boss if it'll help, use a bandage in a tight situation, and do anything they can to help the raid.

This is not a comprehensive list, but I think it covers most of the things I feel strongly about. These are the points I take seriously as a healer, and so they will form the basis for many of my thoughts in this blog.